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We lost a planet

today, our solar system has lost a planet. On the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Prague it has been decided that a planet is an object that exhibits a close-circular orbit around the sun and has enough mass to be almost spherical by gravity (hydrostatic equilibrium). In addition it must have cleared its neighborhood from other cosmic material. This does not apply to Pluto who is within the Kuiper belt. He is now classified as dwarf planet (together with a few more objects). It means that officially the solar system has now only 8 planets. What becomes now of all the nice memorizing sentences??

posted by ingo @ 17:29